Play QwertyPals
Ash chapter opener illustration

Ash

HOME KEY (A)

Ash on the A Key

On the Home Row lives Ash, a friendly little key-friend who sits on the A key. Ash is the home for your left pinky — the smallest finger on your left hand.

Here’s Ash’s job: your left pinky rests gently on A, and no matter where it flies off to type another letter, it always comes back home to A. That’s why A is called a home key.

Can you find Ash? Put your left pinky on the A key. Feel it sit there, comfy and ready. That’s home!

Say it with Ash: “Left pinky reaches, soft and small — Ash on A starts it all.”

Every finger has one home key to come back to, and Ash is the very first. Rest your pinky on A, and you’ve begun. Welcome home!

Reading together with a grown-up? A card for the grown-up

For the grown-up: ask one question, then wait. When they answer, add one word to what they said. Tap the button when they have said something — that is one turn each, a circle. Nothing is recorded or kept.

Let them finish it

Say “Left pinky reaches, soft and small — Ash …” and stop. Let them finish it.

Then say the whole line together: “Left pinky reaches, soft and small — Ash on A starts it all.”.

Now wait. Count slowly to five in your head. Their answer is worth the quiet.

Circles together: 0

The QwertyPals ensemble

Ash is one of the friends in QwertyPals. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.